🚨 WE HAVE A DEAL! After three years, in a major step forward for our members, we have ratified our first contract with @propublica.org’s management. We deeply appreciate everyone who supported us along the way. Here are some of our big wins👇
![A graphic poster reads "We have a deal! The ProPublica Guild has reached a deal with ProPublica's management on our first contract and has voted to ratify it. Swipe for the highlights [pointing emoji].](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:cdv2pqnwpgqvwp7i4h6qqm3m/bafkreicamcjhmrljmxkoelj7c44bud5joxgqjjqcwjjdq66mmnjljtqawe)
Ken Morales
@kbmorales.bsky.social
Data reporter fellow, @propublica.org Interests include fighting bad guys with math. Signal: kbmorales.02
ICE posted an RFI for over 1,000 "surge parking" spaces in 14 cities across the nation. While the posting doesn't state a specific time, it could indicate increased presence in those cities in the near future. sam.gov/workspace/co...
NEW: In a stunning admission, the Trump administration admitted in court documents that it canceled billions in energy grants to states "based solely" on politics -- and whether that state was represented by Democrats and backed Harris in 2024. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/24/b...
Trump Administration Admits Canceling Grants to States That Did Not Vote for Him
Federal officials said in court documents that they halted billions of dollars in funding for energy projects to states “based solely” on whether they backed President Trump in the 2024 election.
nytimes.com
📢 Are you a journalist who uses FOIA or other public records laws in your reporting? You could win $25K with our new journalism award, the Penlight Prize. Submission deadline: Sept. 1, 2026 Read more and apply today:
New $25K ‘Penlight’ journalism award honors paywall-free FOIA reporting
The Penlight Prize celebrates paywall-free reporting based on records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act or state public records laws.
freedom.press
We found that thousands of parents have been separated from U.S. citizen children and at least 79 kids were doused with chemical agents. 🗓️ On July 21, join us for a virtual discussion on how children have been caught in Trump's immigration crackdown: https://propub.li/4fiHDSF
A new procurement record says ICE wants access to personal data, including names, Social Security numbers, and ethnicity, to investigate in part what the agency calls “voters fraud.” It also plans to use the data to investigate immigration fraud.
ICE to Pay Thomson Reuters $125 Million to Find ‘Voter Fraud’
A new procurement record says ICE wants access to personal data, including names, Social Security numbers, and ethnicity, to investigate in part what the agency calls “voters fraud.” It also plans...
404media.co
1/ Wondering what the FBI has been doing with 2020 election materials it seized in a raid earlier this year, and how it figures into Trump’s plans for the midterm elections? Well, @ProPublica has been working to find out. 🧵👇
Somebody made a tool for mounting a CourtListener case as a folder in Windows: github.com/garycal/cour...
GitHub - garycal/courtlistener-drive: Mount a CourtListener docket as a read-only Windows drive (WinFsp) you can drag PDFs from — lazy download, disk cache.
Mount a CourtListener docket as a read-only Windows drive (WinFsp) you can drag PDFs from — lazy download, disk cache. - garycal/courtlistener-drive
github.com
A Harris County prosecutor on Thursday said his office is committed to investigating the fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo by an ICE agent. And four Houston Democratic members of Congress demanded that feds release footage of the incident. Here’s what you need to know. 🧵
NEW The Justice Department is threatening to prosecute election officials across the country for failing to remove noncitizens from their voter rolls, an escalation of the Trump administration's attempts to prosecute election fraud, according to letters I obtained with Andy Mannix @propublica.org 🧵
1/ I looked at 20 years of Supreme Court decisions and found that for the first time, all nine justices decided more cases by secret ballot — aka the “shadow docket” — than it did for cases argued in open court last term. 🧵:
🚨 We analyzed the Supreme Court’s decisions over the past 20 years and found that for the first time, the court issued more consequential rulings on its “shadow docket” (unsigned orders often decided without arguments) than the traditional merits docket. www.propublica.org/article/supr...
A Troubling Milestone: The Supreme Court now decides more cases using its shadow docket than it does on its merits docket, the first time ever that has been the case, a @propublica.org analysis found. @kbmorales.bsky.social
A Troubling Milestone: Most Supreme Court Rulings Are Secretive Votes With Little Justification
ProPublica conducted a new analysis that shows the court is deciding more consequential rulings than ever before in largely unsigned orders with little to no explanation.
propublica.org
NEW: The Trump administration has shut down a controversial Homeland Security tool it had touted as a way to find noncitizens who’d illegally registered to vote, @propublica.org has learned. 🧵
So awful. This paper just won a Pulitzer and deserves another one for its coverage of ICE’s actions in Minnesota. A reminder that journalism layoffs have nothing to do with the quality of work. Minnesota Star Tribune eliminates 24 union jobs, primarily in newsroom www.mprnews.org/story/2026/0...
Minnesota Star Tribune eliminates 24 union jobs, primarily in newsroom
About 175 employees remain in the newsroom, according to spokesperson Chris Iles. The company announced layoffs and buyouts for additional employees earlier in June.
mprnews.org
Compare Alito's description of Trump's racist statements (on the left) to Justice Kagan's anthology of Trump's racist statements (on the right). These are passages from this morning's opinions in Mullin v. Doe.
They finally did it. A group of reformers who have been fighting for years to overthrow the Brooklyn Democratic Party leadership on Tuesday won the majority they need to take over the county party and oust its chair, Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn. hellgatenyc.com/morning-spew...
A New Era for the Brooklyn Dems
And more news for your Thursday.
hellgatenyc.com
A trove of internal records from a secret society for powerful figures in US politics, finance, and tech was left exposed online, WIRED has confirmed, naming participants in its events and revealing sensitive personal details they were assured would stay private.
Leak Exposes Members of Peter Thiel’s Secretive ‘Dialog’ Society
More than 200 of the world's elites registered for a retreat whose agenda runs from panels on cult-building and sex to prepping for World War III. An associated app offers matchmaking.
wired.com
New: An Indian Billionaire was targeted by the Trump administration. Then he poured millions of dollars into a startup secretly backed by Donald Trump Jr. www.propublica.org/article/trum... w/ @josh-kaplan.bsky.social @amierjeski.bsky.social
An Indian Billionaire Was Targeted by Trump. Then He Poured Money Into a Startup Secretly Backed by Donald Trump Jr.
An obscure Texas firm secretly connected to the president’s son said it received at least $100 million from Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries. At the same time, the Ambani family secured major polic...
propublica.org
One factor in the recent homicide decline was the Biden admin's clampdown on gun trafficking. Now, the Trump admin is pulling back on several fronts, raising odds that the flow of illegal guns will rise, with ill effects down the line. My latest @propublica.org: www.propublica.org/article/how-...
“No One Is Watching”: How Trump Reversed Biden’s Crackdown on Gun Trafficking
After Biden clamped down on the flow of illegal guns, Trump has referred fewer ATF trafficking charges for prosecution, eased up on irresponsible gun shops and shifted hundreds of ATF agents to immigr...
propublica.org
New: A top White House aide intervened to get a $620 million Pentagon loan for a company tied to Donald Trump Jr. “The call came from the White House: We have to get this done,” said one person involved. www.propublica.org/article/dona...
The White House Intervened to Get a $620 Million Deal for a Company Tied to Donald Trump Jr.
About three months before the Pentagon announced plans to lend money to Vulcan Elements, Trump Jr.’s venture capital firm took an undisclosed stake in the company.
propublica.org
The government appears to be trying to privatize the federal prison system piecemeal. This month, they've put out several RFIs for vendors to take over things like food services (!), medical (!!) and commissary. For example, here's the food services one:
NEW: Prosecutors Had a Drugs-for-Votes Scheme “Locked Up.” Under Trump, They Were Told Not to Pursue Charges. By @raquelrutledge.bsky.social
Prosecutors Had a Drugs-for-Votes Scheme “Locked Up.” Under Trump, They Were Told Not to Pursue Charges.
Before the 2024 election, federal prosecutors were "full steam ahead" looking into how a prison gang in Puerto Rico gave drugs to inmates if they voted for a GOP gubernatorial candidate. After Trump’s...
propublica.org
I don't quite have words yet. I'm stunned, grateful, disoriented. My deepest, deepest thanks to the five families without whom this book would not exist. It has been the honor of my life to know and learn from you.
WATCH: The DOJ quietly closed 23,000+ criminal cases in the first six months of the second Trump administration, abandoning hundreds of investigations into terrorism, white-collar crime, drugs and other offenses as it shifted resources to pursue immigration cases. Full story: propub.li/4tHp2Wd
